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Mass media: NATO Secretary-General may be woman for first time in history of military alliance

Kersti Kaljulai, Dalia Grybauskaite, Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic

11 August 2021 10:49 (UTC +04:00)

NATO is looking for a woman as secretary-general, APA reports citing Market research telecast.

It is not yet known who will replace the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, who ends his mandate on September 30, 2022, and cannot be re-elected. But there is broad consensus that his replacement, who is to be elected at the summit scheduled for next spring in Madrid, is a woman. For the first time in its 73-year history, a woman would thus occupy the highest political position in the world’s main military alliance.

Negotiations to find a replacement for Stoltenberg will begin in the autumn and the formal election will take place in Madrid, but names have already begun to circulate in the allied capitals and they all have one characteristic in common: in addition to being European (tradition indicates that the general secretary be European and the military command, American), they are women. “There is a general conviction that the time has come for a woman to be at the head of NATO,” said diplomatic sources.

The name that is ringing the most in allied circles is that of former British Prime Minister Theresa May. May’s informal candidacy has the advantage of having been prime minister (like Stoltenberg) and the disadvantage, for some partners, that her country does not belong to the EU, which could generate friction at a time when the 27 want to develop a common security and defense policy.

It is not the only name that is used: there are also those of the Italian Federica Mogherini, 48, High Representative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy from 2014 to 2019; and German Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, 59, better known as AKK, Minister of Defense.

The Eastern countries, which have never had a NATO secretary-general also names of candidates are already circulating, always women, such as Dalia Grybauskaite, 65, president of Lithuania between 2009 and 2019 and European commissioner of 2004 to 2009; Estonian President Kersti Kaljulai, 51; or Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, 53, president of Croatia between 2015 and 2020.